Ward Christmas Party 2013

The Ward Christmas party was a fun-filled night full of games, food, contests, photo-booths, and a visit from Santa.

Five For Friday - Sadie, Sade, Sade

I seem to always end up with a plethora of Sade pics.

1. Like these:



2. And these:





3. A little Sade nightstand ornamentation:



4. While decorating for Christmas Eric put Sadie in this niche. She liked it so much she ate her dinner in it that night:



5. Finally, Sade was sick, sick, sick a couple of weeks ago. Happily she had Tucker to cuddle with:



I also snapped this picture of her while we were waiting for Jackson to get out of school:



She was so miserable it hurt to even sit in her seat.

School Awards

Last week we attended the first quarter awards assemblies at school.

Megan received an award for "A" Honor Roll.



Megan with Dr. Lea the principal.

Jackson received an award for 3/4 Honor Roll and a Citizenship award for getting all "Os (outstandings)" in all of the specialists classes (art, science, etc.)



Jackson with Miss Fletcher (his teacher) and Dr. Lea

Sade received an award for 4 Honor Roll, and also the Citizenship Award for always helping others. She was one of two kids in her class to get one.



Sadie with her teacher Mr. Cohen.

Good job kiddies.

Car Cuties

Eric takes Megan to school almost everyday while I take Jackson and Sadie. While there is sometimes fighting and screaming (Sadie) mostly there is lots of laughing and playing. One of the best parts of my day is watching them get out of the car and walk together into school. It makes me smile every time.

Random Holiday Decorating

I have never in my life decorated for Christmas before Thanksgiving. But this year, the weekend before Thanksgiving I decided that I could not wait a second longer, so we broke out the decorations.

It's an overwhelming/messy process:




Last year after Christmas I bought a holiday themed window painting art kit that I thought would be great amounts of fun. Apparently is wasn't, as the kids could barely get through one stencil before abandoning the project entirely.



I ended up having to finish it off. I don't get why they didn't like it. I thought it was fun.



Apparently I don't have good pictures of the final project (I did 3 windows), but you get the idea:




This just may be all of the decorating we do this year. Our outside lights are not up yet, and since it is already the 11th of December they sadly may not even make an appearance.

Sadie Said

Sadie said: "You know two things I like doing? Spitting and eating desserts."

 

 

Good to know.

 

Also:

 

As I picked her up from Kindergarten she remarked, "I feel so sad inside that I am like the only kid whose mom picks them up."

Which for the record is not even remotely true. There are probably only about 5 dads there every day, but when you are a daddy's girl, apparently a sea of men is all you notice.

14th Anniversary

Last Wednesday Eric and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary. I wrote on Instagram and Facebook,

"Happy 14th anniversary to my most favorite person, Eric. We are celebrating by attending 2 school awards assemblies, taking Megan and Sadie to cheerleading practice, watching Jackson's basketball game, taking Jackson to scouts, and then going to Young Women's and Young Men's. It's a great life."



And it is.

On Saturday we were able to do a little more celebrating by going to the Melting Pot. I had only been once before and Eric had never been.

Fondue is just plain fun.



For dessert we had the Yin/Yang. I LOVE white chocolate and Eric LOVES all chocolate so it was perfect for us.



Just like Eric is perfect for me.

Thanksgiving 2013

Our Thanksgiving preparations started the night before. Sade is an excellent cook and helped me with the entire 2 1/2 hour process of roll making.

She is a committed cook.

We were having dinner with our Baird friends the next day and Amy had given me a recipe that said, "Place your UNTHAWED turkey in the oven at 10 pm the night before Thanksgiving." I thought this was strange and asked her about it, but she said that some sort of turkey guru gave them the recipe for their ward Christmas party and he said it was the best turkey ever, so we went with it.

BUT THEN.......At 8 pm I got a frantic call from Amy that although he wrote UNTHAWED, he actually meant THAWED! Oy vey! Apparently, and this is the actual truth, he though UNTHAWED meant THAWED. Seriously.

My sad frozen turkey:



Anyway...We put our FROZEN turkeys in the oven and hoped for the best. And miracle of miracles they were done by 10 am Thanksgiving morning.

After a long morning playing football (and I do mean long), we left for the Bairds and saw an ice cream truck come rolling through the neighborhood. There ain't no rest for the wicked, money don't grow on trees.



The food stash.



This year we made two different turkeys. Kade and Amy wanted to see if we could tell a difference between an organic and non-organic turkey when they were cooked exactly the same way.

The results were that we could not.

Kids table:



After dinner the men folk lounged, while we women and kid folk went out for a walk.





We spent the rest of the evening eating dessert, playing games, and watching some more T.V.

Good Thanksgiving.